I follow him into the cellar. “What if I have something he wants?” The crystal is a warm weight against my side. I draw it from my pocket and hold it between us.

Auggie’s pupils flash. “Where did you get that?”

The others tread down the stairs. I ignore their hushed whispers as they take in Auggie’s collection of weapons. Auggie reaches for the eye. I close my fingers around it. This is the only play I have left. “How do I draw him out?” I ask.

Auggie sucks his teeth, scratching at a patch of stubble on his jaw. He gestures for me to follow him to a shelf in the corner, where he whips a bedsheet off an old VHF radio, throwing up a cloud of dust.

“Whoa,” I say as Auggie lugs it from the shelf. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was in high school.” And even then, they were old. Auggie sets it on an antique desk, then drags a chair across the room and sits in front of it. “Does it even work?”

Auggie grunts, his glasses low on the bridge of his nose as he switches on the radio. The fly circles him once before alighting on his shoulder.

Curious, Amber comes to look, too. “I don’t understand. How’s a radio going to help us get a message to Doug?”

Auggie’s smile is slight, and maybe a little smug. “The Observatory’s always listening.”

“The Observatory’s empty,” I say. “The Control Room is probably buried by now.”

“Only the parts below ground.” Auggie frowns as he tunes the dials. “Tell your friend that blade is sharp.”

I turn to see Julio messing around with some kind of katana. I draw a finger across my throat and point at the shelf where it came from. He puts it back in its sheath with an exaggerated sigh.

Auggie switches on the mic. “North Portal . . . North Portal . . . Do you read me?”

Marie, Chill, and Poppy hover close, listening as Auggie adjusts the knobs. I rub my eyes, fighting frustration and fatigue. The radio is a dinosaur. There’s no way this is going to work.

A hiss breaks the silence. “This is North Portal. Identify yourself.”

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. The damn thing actually works. My gaze flicks to the beaded curtain at the entrance to the back room. If Auggie managed to get all that stuff upstairs working, what else is he capable of fixing?

“This is . . . Black Fly.” Auggie clicks off the mic, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “I’ve been listening to the Control Room’s communications over these lines for years. You know, a fly on the wall.” He waves his hand, gesturing at all of us. “Or now, apparently, a fly in their ointment.”

“This is a private frequency,” the staticky voice says. “You do not have authority to transmit.”